If elected into office, Mayoral candidate Craig Lord wants to prioritise the Council into rethinking the growing refuse problem that has spread itself across the entire Auckland region.

Lord strongly believes that the current inorganic collection system is faulty, and that illegal dumpers are taking advantage of the NODUMP phone number. He says the money being spent on the 0800 NODUMP system is nonsensical.

“The monitoring, the administration, the collection, and then the investigations and rare pitiful fines. It makes no sense to keep going this way and the illegal dumping is getting worse”

“If you know that a member of the public will call a number to have your illegally placed rubbish collected for free, then why not do it? The dumpers clearly have no community morals, so why wouldn’t they take advantage of this situation?”

“What we need to do is dump or upgrade the online yearly booking system for the inorganic rubbish collection. It’s heavily restricted on what can be set out for pickup, and that is also an issue. I’ve garnered feedback from the general public and they are fairly unanimous in their thoughts – give Aucklander’s at least one single day per year to take their rubbish to the tip for free. Maybe even twice a year.”

Lord is aware that it will not solve the problem 100% as many people don’t have the ability to take a year’s worth of household refuse to their local waste station.

“It needs a lot of discussion and feedback. Mainly due to the mess and scavenging problems that occur with kerbside dumping, but we must find a better solution. The current system is broken so we need to make changes. Maybe it’s time for each community to rally around and support themselves – and maybe the Council could help create an online database of area locals willing to bring a trailer to your place. That’s a win-win and quite doable. But as I’ve stated, the current system isn’t working so we need a massive rethink – including ideas outside of the box.”

He knows the Council didn’t listen to public submissions when they decided to remove kerbside collections and says they need to put their hands up and admit they got it wrong.

“Dumping is only one part of a major refuse problem for the city that needs addressing. The proposed landfill in Dome Valley needs to be stopped, we have to urgently solve the recycling issues, and the tag system in Waitakere is a complete disaster. It’s time for the Council to remind itself of its core fundamental duties – and sorting rubbish happens to be one of them.”

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